Long Vintage - A new style??

[uncle tom]

This is a bit adventurous, but from my experiences of very old dated Tawny's (and to a lesser extent, Colheitas) I can see a valid new style.

I will call it 'Long Vintage'

Vintage quality wine is stored in standard used oak 550 litre pipes (no more, no less, no stainless steel) for ten years; during which time it is periodically racked, but otherwise left in peace.

It is then bottled, unfiltered, to complete it's maturation for at least five years more.

In short, it is LBV with attitude..!

The resulting wine should (I think!) have most of the qualities of a 30yr old vintage port in around half that time - not a perfect alternatiive, but a wine that might retail for around £20

- Now tell me why this would be a waste of time!

Tom

[DRT]

Tom,

I love the logic in terms of the maturation process but I think the suggested price would be the problem. I'm not sure shippers would be willing to hang on to juice for 15 years that was only going to fetch the equivalent of £20 per bottle.

Ignoting the price, would this new style be best served with Long Pig

Derek

[Luc]

Don't worry Derek , they'll just bottle It , and ship It to Québec , and sell It for $ 500.00 a bottle .
Then some poor sap will buy It . . .

[uncle tom]

With 20yr tawnies retailing for a little over £20, and 10yr tawnies retailing for around £15, a £20 retail price tag on a 15 yr old wine does not seem too far off the mark.

The Vesuvio 'special reserve' may be somewhere near this - but I don't know how much time passed before it was bottled, or how it was kept prior to bottling.

An alternative formulation might be 8 years in wood followed by 7 in bottle.

Tom

[DRT]

Tom,

In terms of return on investment we can't compare this to aged tawnys. The shippers are just topping up supplies of the individual wines that make up those blends and have a more or less constant tap to turn on at any given point in time.

With your new style the best they could do now is set aside the oldest LBV still in cask (4 years?) and would have to wait for the balance of 15 years to pass before being paid. I can't see how this could work given the strains on the current market.

Derek

[mosesbotbol]

I like the idea a lot. Where can I get some?

[Luc]

Don't worry Derek , they'll just bottle It , and ship It to Québec , and sell It for $ 500.00 a bottle .
Then some poor sap will buy It . . .

Just read that the SAQ's net revenu for the last trimester was $ 1,6 million ! ! !
No wonder Québec is the worlds 4th largest market for premium Port . . .

[Frederick Blais]

Don't worry Derek , they'll just bottle It , and ship It to Québec , and sell It for $ 500.00 a bottle .
Then some poor sap will buy It . . .

Just read that the SAQ's net revenu for the last trimester was $ 1,6 million ! ! !
No wonder Québec is the worlds 4th largest market for premium Port . . .

Only 1,6million, that seems low or it is only for Port?

Anyway if you want to find some Long Vintage, some producers in the 19th century and early 20th century where doing Vintage Port like this before strick ruling and categories where created. Remember that in those times, there was no tawnies it was all Vintage and some where mentionning late bottling.

I remember reading broadbent book on this and I think it was niepoort that did bottle at least one vintage like 6-10 years later, can't remember.

On the price issue, it would be a non-sense. Already they don't make much money with VP, having to wait 10 years to see 20% of your production evaporate trough the barrels. I really don't think someone is warm with the idea of doing this

[Alex Bridgeman]

Fred's right. What you've described is essentially the same as some of the UK merchants used to do many years back when they would ship a couple of pipes to the UK and then more or less bottle to order. The result - some wine spent many more than 2 years in the barrel before being bottled and often laid down in house cellars.

However, I do like the idea as I am convinced that some LBVs are not much lower in quality than full blown Vintage Ports. The Warre 1995 Traditional comes to mind, as do some of the Noval LBVs.

Incidentally, if I understood what we were told correctly when at Vesuvio, the Special Reserve is only bottled when required. It is stored in barrel, not topped up, and drawn out and bottled when about to be drunk.

Alex

[Luc]

Don't worry Derek , they'll just bottle It , and ship It to Québec , and sell It for $ 500.00 a bottle .
Then some poor sap will buy It . . .

Just read that the SAQ's net revenu for the last trimester was $ 1,6 million ! ! !
No wonder Québec is the worlds 4th largest market for premium Port . . .

Only 1,6million, that seems low or it is only for Port?

Anyway if you want to find some Long Vintage, some producers in the 19th century and early 20th century where doing Vintage Port like this before strick ruling and categories where created. Remember that in those times, there was no tawnies it was all Vintage and some where mentionning late bottling.

I remember reading broadbent book on this and I think it was niepoort that did bottle at least one vintage like 6-10 years later, can't remember.

On the price issue, it would be a non-sense. Already they don't make much money with VP, having to wait 10 years to see 20% of your production evaporate trough the barrels. I really don't think someone is warm with the idea of doing this

Salut Fred , my mistake . It should be $1.6 billion ( all wines )

[Alex Bridgeman]

As you know, I quite like the occasional South African fortified red wine made with traditional Portuguese port grape varieties and with a fermentation stopped early through the addition of neutral grape spirit - hereafter referred to for convenience as port.

One such port that I have just opened is the Landskroon 2002 that Alex K recommended to me. Interestingly enough, when I read through the winemaker's notes here I found that this wine has been made in yet another variation to the style that Tom has suggested. This is a single vintage, harvested, fermented, fortified and then stored in old 225L barrels for 45 months before being bottled. The winemaker's notes claim that it has aging potential for 5-10 years and having tasted the port I would agree - it has plenty of fruit, tannin and acidity.

So why put the wine in a dumpy bottle with a 2cm T stopper that leaks like crazy as soon as you lie it down!!

This is a wine with plenty going for it, but has characteristics that I would best describe as a "heavyweight late bottled vintage".

Alex

[KillerB]

I'm always willing to take credit for things that I have recommended but feel extraordinarily guilty if I'm given credit inadvertently: I've never heard of Landskroon